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Adam wandered through the dark streets of Wakehurst, barely aware of where he was going.

Through the fog of despair in his mind he felt a growing fear. He was all alone. If the Nightmare found him now, he would be lost, driven inside, just like Cora and the others. Maybe it wasn’t so bad in there. After all, the Nightmare had told him it was what he’d wanted, the reason he’d made it in the first place. To hide from the world and all the horrible things in it. To disappear inside his head, like he’d been doing for years every time he hid inside his daydreams. Only this time it would be permanent. Would it be like one long daydream? Would he get to be a hero again, with Banter by his side? He wanted to believe it, but the image of writhing limbs and drawn faces - desperate to scream but seemingly unable - refused to be cast aside. The Nightmare did not trap you in a dream. Adam knew it. He’d given it the perfect name, because it was born from Adam’s waking nightmare and all it could do was share that nightmare with others. How could he have made such a terrible thing? Was that really what he was, deep down? Was that really how twisted his mind had become?

Adam reached a street with a tall iron fence running along the edge of the pavement. He recognised it instantly. He was back at school, right on the corner where Marcus Kirk had caught him - beaten him - broken him in ways he’d never felt before… causing him to release the darkest parts of himself out into the world.

Where was Marcus now? Was he still in the hospital? Still trapped in a nightmare? I hope so, thought Adam, remembering the pain as Marcus kicked him over and over again. But even as he thought the words, he knew they weren’t true. He didn’t forgive Marcus for what he’d done, but he still hated the thought that he was suffering because of Adam. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, no matter how much they deserved it. Did that make him a coward? Iris had said courage came from caring about others, but how could that possibly be true?

Adam knelt down on the grass, feeling the gentle licks of the blades with his fingers. Could he have done something differently? Stopped Marcus without hurting him? What would’ve happened if Adam had cared enough about his tormentor to act with courage, rather than fear? What would have come through the cracks instead of the Nightmare?

Adam didn’t know. Not yet.

“Time to stop hiding,” he said to the empty street. Then he stood back up and started running down familiar roads.

He knew where he was going now.

The lights were off in his house.

Good, thought Adam, stay out as late as you want dad. Stay out all night.

He was out of breath, a sharp stitch in his side from his long run from the school. But Adam felt more alive than he had in years as he approached the steps of his front porch. The darkness beneath them was as thick as ever, but Adam walked up one step at a time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that when it wasn’t broad daylight. He couldn’t remember if he ever had. He’d not come here to hide from a monster. He’d come here to find one.

Nothing grabbed his ankles from the darkness beneath the porch, so he continued to the front door. He pulled out his key, inserting it carefully, not wanting to drop it this time. The lock clicked open, and Adam swung the door inwards, revealing the hallway beyond. He could only make out the first few metres, where the light from the streetlamps could reach. The rest was nothing but shadow. Deep wells of it surrounded each doorway into the other rooms, and the far end of the hallway was void of all light and movement. Anything could’ve been standing in that nothingness, just waiting for him to step inside and join it in the dark.

Sweat dripped down Adam’s forehead, stinging his eyes and causing him to squint. His heart was hammering inside his chest. He didn’t know if he was still just recovering from his long run, or if he was terrified. He decided it didn’t matter. He was going into that hallway regardless.

Adam stepped inside. The lightswitch was on the wall to his left. His whole body tensed up as he reached out to flick the switch, and he forced himself to stare into the darkness at the end of the hallway as warm light spilled out from the old, incandescent bulbs along the ceiling. The darkness vanished, and in its place was nothing but an empty hallway. Adam let out an involuntary sigh of relief, then marched directly through the door into the living room, turning on the light in there and feeling the same anticipation as before. But there was no Nightmare in that room, or the kitchen, or his bedroom. Once he’d finished searching the whole house, he marched back into the hallway and began pacing up and down, too agitated to stop moving.

So, the Nightmare wasn’t here waiting for him. That was fine. He knew how to call it.

Adam closed his eyes. He saw the Nightmare, or imagined it, he wasn’t really sure. It was alone, out in the dark. He saw it approaching his street, the familiar houses and trees flashing past as it ran in its terrible, jaunting way, racing towards Adam. It would be here soon. Adam could physically feel the panic rise throughout his body as blood rushed from his limbs to pool around his organs, preparing to do whatever it could to keep him alive through what was about to happen. His breathing came in short, sharp gasps, flooding him with extra oxygen. His pupils dilated, letting in as much light as possible. Every advantage counted in a fight for your life.

The doorbell rang.

Adam jumped so violently he almost threw himself backwards onto the hardwood floor. Then he heard someone speaking from the other side of the door, and what little control he had over his panicking mind vanished.

“Adam, it’s us, let us in!”

He knew that voice. Ridley’s voice. What the hell was he doing here!

Adam sprinted to the door and hurled it open. Gathered on his front porch stood Ridley, Moan, and Gen.

“Told you I saw him come back,” said Gen to the others, her arms crossed in indignation.

“Our sincerest apologies for ever doubting you, fair lady,” replied Ridley with a mocking bow.

“Why are you here?” Adam asked with obvious panic and it snapped them all out of their lighthearted mood.

“We’ve been waiting in one of Moan’s friend’s houses, just up the street. He said you lived here, and we figured you’d come back eventually. We want to talk about how we’re going to get revenge on that son of a…” Adam’s nerve broke and he shoved Ridley and Moan apart so he could see the road behind them. The streetlamps created islands of light, separated by pools of darkness. Something dashed across the island just three up from Adam’s house. Something that moved wrong - frantic, jerking motions, like it had little control over itself. It disappeared into the next pool of darkness, then reappeared into the light a moment later. So fast… so close.

“It’s coming!” screamed Adam, grasping wildly at the others to pull them inside. Moan and Gen were frozen in horror, looking out at the street as the Nightmare disappeared into darkness once again, before re-emerging into the island of light directly in front of Adam’s house.

Ridley recovered first. Scooping Gen up around the waist he carried her into the hallway. “Moan, move!” he bellowed, and with Adam dragging him by the shirt, Moan dashed inside after the others, leaving Adam to slam the door shut behind them.

Adam got one final look at the street before the door closed. Bloodshot eyes, rolling upwards into the top of a skull - a mouth gaping so wide the jaw looked broken - long skeletal hands reaching forwards - the Nightmare had reached the stairs of Adam’s front porch.

The door slammed closed, and Adam was painfully aware of how little protection it offered. Just a flimsy piece of plywood that even Gen could’ve kicked open if she tried hard enough. Adam felt a desperate desire for it to be made of steel. For his whole house to become a fortress, instead of the run-down hut it was. He’d come here to face the Nightmare, but that was impossible now. His friends were here. Friends? Yes, that was how he thought of them. Realising it filled him with more dread than a thousand monsters at his door ever could. He would NOT lose another friend.

On pure instinct, he imagined that his entire house was encased in an impenetrable steel, coating every door, every window, even the walls and the roof, in a thick layer of shining metal. He saw a blinding flash of white as enormous cracks erupted in the air around him, expanding outwards to cover his entire house. Then a sound like thunder echoed down the hallway as the Nightmare struck his front door with devastating force.

The door trembled, as if afraid, but it didn’t break.

Adam took a few unsteady steps backward as the sound of the Nightmare hammering on the door echoed down the hallway. Each time it struck, both the door and Adam quivered, but it seemed whatever barrier Adam had made around his house was strong enough to keep the Nightmare out. For now.

“That was close,” said Ridley with a nervous laugh.

Adam spun towards him. “You shouldn’t be here!”

The laugh slipped from Ridley’s face. “Neither should you.”

“What? This is my house!”

“And you thought coming back here alone in the middle of the night was a good idea? This is exactly why I told the others we needed to wait for you. I knew you’d do something stupid again, like climbing up that ladder after Cora.”

Adam felt heat rising through his body. “Cora would’ve gone up there for you!”

“And she would’ve come here for you!”

“Quiet, both of you!” yelled Moan. He was looking towards the front door, his head slightly tilted. “Don’t you hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything,” grumbled Ridley.

“Exactly.”

Adam listened, but there was nothing to hear. It took him a moment to realise why that was so unsettling. The Nightmare had stopped trying to break down the door.

“Where’d it go?” asked Gen, and Adam felt a tingling sensation run down his spine. It hadn’t been pleasant hearing the Nightmare hammering on his front door, but at least he’d known exactly where it was… now though…

“Shush, what was that?” Moan was looking upwards, along the low ceiling of the hallway. Soft scuffling sounds from above made them all huddle closer together, all arguments forgotten.

It was on the roof.

“What’s it doing up there?” asked Ridley.

Stupid question, thought Adam. It couldn’t have been more obvious to him. “It’s looking for a way in.”

More scuffling drifted down from the ceiling, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It was disorienting, and made it seem like the entire roof was crawling with monsters.

“There’s only one of those things, right?” asked Moan in a pleading voice.

“Of course there’s only one,” whispered Adam. One Nightmare at least. Adam thought back to all those earlier times he’d lost control of the cracks, how the things that came out of them would disappear, and how he thought he’d catch glimpses of them moving between the trees at the back of his garden or slipping between the pillars under his house… what if there was more than one monster out there?

The scuffling stopped. A heavy thud from behind them made them all jump and spin around, with Gen letting out a high-pitched squeal. The Nightmare had jumped off the roof.

“Looks like it couldn’t find a way in,” said Ridley with relief. “Nice job on that barrier, Wildfire, what did you do anyway? Make the house indestructible or something?”

“I just imagined the walls and roof covered by super strong steel, like a fortress,” said Adam, feeling his cheeks burn red at the praise from the older boy.

Ridley cracked a smile and seemed on the verge of praising Adam again, when a new sound froze them in silent fear once again.

It was a scuffling, scraping noise, like something being dragged over rough ground. And it was coming from beneath their feet.

“It’s under the house,” said Gen, in barely a whisper.

Ridley’s face still held a trace of the smile he’d given Adam. “Uh, Wildfire, did you say you only imagined the walls and roof covered in steel?”

Adam looked at Ridley, and both of their faces fell into a close imitation of the Nightmare’s stricken look of horror.

Something exploded through the floor at the end of the corridor, sending splintered floorboards ricocheting everywhere.

It landed in a spider-like crouch on the ceiling, its head tilted back at an impossibly sharp angle, its white, bloodshot eyes fixed on Adam. Before the last of the shattered floorboards had finished crashing down, Adam had grabbed Ridley and Gen by their sleeves, and hurled his shoulder against Moan, dragging the lot of them through a doorway on their left. It led into Adam’s small living room. There were two windows on the far wall, both of them clearly showing the glossy steel Adam had coated the outside of the house in. They headed straight for them, Adam’s mind still clear enough to understand that they were the only way out of this room.

“They’re blocked!” Moan screamed unhelpfully into his ear.

Adam tried to imagine the windows as they once were, desperate to clear the way for them to escape. Cracks appeared, the glass panes shattered, but the steel barrier remained.

“Wildfire?” Ridley was facing the doorway to the corridor, his weaponised lighter in hand.

“I’m trying!” cried Adam, his voice giving away just how panicked he was. The cracks appeared again, and the steel barrier groaned like the hull of a ship straining under pressure. But it still remained.

“Focus Adam!” Ridley’s voice was almost drowned out by the sound of rushing fire as he spun the dial on his lighter and bathed the figure at the doorway in orange flames. The Nightmare made no move to avoid the fire. It came towards them, one jerking step at a time. The force from Ridley’s fire slowed it down, but it showed no signs that it felt the heat at all.

Adam became aware that he wasn’t breathing anymore. He forced himself to take in a deep gulp of air.

Clear your mind. CLEAR YOUR MIND.

But how could he? His mind was in complete panic - his thoughts a churning sea. At this point, he’d have an easier time clearing out a real storm from the night sky than the fear from his mind.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

He’d come here to stop the Nightmare. Not to run. Not to become its next victim. He’d been afraid, yes, but he’d also been in control. That had all gone out the window when his friends arrived. In one instant, the cost of failure had gone from acceptable, to unbearable. He knew he deserved whatever fate the Nightmare had in store for him, but the others…

Ridley was screaming. The Nightmare had one skeletal hand reaching through the flames towards him, close enough now that its haunting voice had begun its rhythmic chant inside Ridley’s head. Adam could hear it too, whether real or imaginary, he had no idea. It hardly seemed to matter now.

Inside forever… inside FOREVER…

As Adam fell deeper and deeper within himself, his oldest instincts came to the surface. Or perhaps it was the surface that came to them. Either way, the result was the same. An overwhelming desire to hide. To disappear, to vanish without a trace.

Adam had wished he could turn invisible more times than most kids had wished to become rich and famous. It had always felt like the ultimate superpower to him. Not some blunt weapon like super strength - invisibility was a shield. The ultimate defence against the world’s relentless judgement. It had always represented safety to Adam, and safety was what he needed now, more than ever.

Cracks of white light split the air around Adam and his friends. Ridley stopped screaming, and the Nightmare’s voice was silenced just as its fingers reached the tip of Ridley’s lighter. Then the lighter was no more. Vanished, just like Adam had. Just like they all had. The Nightmare’s white, bloodshot eyes swept across the space its prey had been cornered in just moments ago, and found nothing.

Adam had his finger pressed hard to his lips, signalling to the others to keep silent. He could still see them, but only just. They were shimmers of themselves. Mirages teetering on the edge of sight, as if he’d only remembered to keep them all visible to each other as an afterthought. But it was enough, and Adam began moving around the edges of the room, motioning for the others to do the same.

The Nightmare had not moved yet. Mingled amongst its expression of pure horror was confusion. It swiped at the air in front of it, but Ridley was now tip-toeing around the moth-eaten sofa on the Nightmare’s left side. For a few tense moments, it seemed they would simply be able to slip away into the night, unnoticed. But Adam’s house was old, and it complained about its aches and pains the same way all old things do. Out loud.

Surprisingly it was Gen, the lightest of them all, who happened to step on the wrong floorboard. The creak it produced was long and stuttering, like a failing car engine giving its last spurts of life. The Nightmare’s head snapped in her direction, so violently they could hear its neck bones crack. Then it lunged at her, arms and legs splayed wide like a net.

The brief calm that had descended over the room since Adam had turned them invisible was shattered. Gen screamed, Moan crash-tackled her out of the way, Ridley’s lighter roared back to life, and Adam shrieked above it all - “RUNNN!”

Chaos reigned, and yet somehow they all managed to stay out of the Nightmare’s grasp. It lurched around the room, arms sweeping frantically in every direction, looking for something to sink its bony fingers into - a loose piece of clothing, or a fleshy limb. Something it could use to drag one of them kicking and screaming into its terrible embrace. But as close as it came - closer than even it realised - it couldn’t find them.

Adam found himself back out in the hallway, clutching Gen’s arm tightly and sprinting down towards the back of his house. He looked back over his shoulder just in time to see Ridley’s mirage disappear through the doorway that led into his bedroom. No way out of there, thought Adam with a spike of fear for his tall friend. But there was no time to worry about that. The Nightmare was in the hallway too, and it was following the loudest sound it could hear - Adam and Gen’s combined footsteps.

The hallway ended with three different doors. The one to the right led into the kitchen. The one straight ahead to his father’s bedroom, and the one on the left led through the laundry and out onto the back porch. Adam veered towards this one, pulling Gen close to the left-hand wall so they wouldn’t fall into the gaping hole in the floor the Nightmare had made. The hole had jagged edges of splintered wood on all sides, and through it, Adam could see only darkness. Beneath the house had always been a place of horrid fascination to him. A different world, the mirror opposite to the one above, where sunlight held the worst of his irrational fears at bay. In the daylight, it’s easier to believe there’s no such thing as monsters. But under the house, the normal rules do not apply. Anything is possible down there, amongst the spiderwebs and shadows.

With only a few steps to go before they’d reach the end of the hallway, Adam remembered that the house was still covered in his steel barrier. The door to the back porch would be as impenetrable as the windows in the living room had been. He needed a moment to breathe, to focus his mind and un-make the barrier. But the Nightmare was hunting them, following the creaks their shoes left with each running step on Adam’s old floorboards. They needed a place to hide, somewhere the seams of the house couldn’t betray them. Somewhere sound echoed and played tricks on the mind, where two invisible kids could simply disappear.

Adam didn’t have the time to second guess his next decision. If he’d really thought about what he was doing, even just for a moment, he never would’ve gone through with it. But he didn’t have time to think. He just acted. Gripping tightly onto Gen’s arm, he turned them away from the door, and towards the hole in the floor.

They took a running leap and fell straight through the jagged hole, as if they were being swallowed by the gaping mouth of a monstrous shark. They crumpled onto the cold dirt and the darkness enveloped them. For one panic-stricken moment, it felt like they’d gone blind. Then their eyes adjusted, and Adam could see the eerie pillars spread out around them, appearing to go on endlessly, like they really had entered another world - a shadow world, buried beneath our own.

Adam’s instinct was to panic and scramble back up into the light of the hallway above, but he could feel Gen’s arm trembling in his grip, and knew that if he let the panic take control now, he would lose her too. Then Moan. Then Ridley… And he would be all alone again.

Adam began to crawl, pulling Gen along with him. He had no idea where he was going - it was too dark to see a way out - but they moved fast and barely made a sound. The soft dirt floor muffled their movements, and the pillars bounced what little sound they made in all directions. He turned to look over his shoulder and had to stifle a scream. The Nightmare’s head was hanging upside down through the hole, spinning erratically in all directions looking for them… listening for them. It knew they were down here, but it clearly couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

Adam pulled them behind a pillar. They were far enough away from the hole now that the darkness was almost complete. He could no longer make out the shape of Gen huddled beside him. Terrified that he might lose track of her, he imagined them fully visible again, and a shimmer of white light washed over them. He could now see Gen as a shadowy figure, crouched on all fours and shaking in fright. He reached out a hand and gripped her shoulder firmly, reassuring them both that they were not alone. Then he steeled himself, and peeked around the pillar to see if the Nightmare was following them.

Light shone down through the hole in the floor like a sunbeam through a dark cloud. The Nightmare’s head had vanished. Adam felt a sudden surge of fear, certain that it must be down here with them, hunting them in the dark.

“Where is it?” Gen’s voice was less than a whisper, barely more than an exhale of breath, but it still made Adam jump with fright.

“I don’t know.”

“Did it follow us?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if it found one of the others?”

Adam felt like a knot was slowly tightening in his chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. “We’d be able to hear if it had.” A memory flashed through his mind, of a destroyed classroom - of a ladder leading up through the ceiling - and screaming. Terrible screaming, so loaded with fear that Adam almost couldn’t recognise who it belonged to… Almost. Now his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps, “I need to lower the barrier, then they can get out. I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

“Well be quick about it,” hissed Gen, and her agitation did nothing to ease Adam’s panic.

They crouched there in the dark as the seconds ticked away, hoping against hope that no scream would come from the house above, and that no monster would find them hiding in the dark. Then one snuck up behind Adam, silent as a mouse, and tapped him right on the shoulder with a furry, claw-filled paw.

Adam screamed.

Gen joined in a second later.

Then the monster began yelping in fear too.

They all scrambled backwards away from each other, and Adam got a better look at what had found them.

It was a rounded lump of a thing, covered from head to toe in what looked like scraggy fur, though it was too dark to tell for certain. It was even bigger than Moan, but seemed to be able to move lightly on its stumpy legs. Its eyes were the only things Adam could see clearly. They were enormous, with irises of vivid green that seemed to attract every beam of light down there, giving them a faint glowing effect.

All three of them fell silent again at the exact same moment.

Above them, something made a thumping sound, then the unmistakable shuffling of feet on wooden floors drifted over them. It was impossible to tell who was moving around up there, and whether they were going towards, or away from the hole that would lead them down here. Adam just hoped they hadn’t caused Ridley or Moan to come out of hiding, thinking they needed saving. Because he was quite sure now that they didn’t.

“I know you,” Adam whispered to the big, scruffy monster, and its enormous green eyes seemed to shine brighter.

“What is it?” hissed Gen from somewhere to his left.

Adam didn’t know how to answer that, but he did know where he’d first seen those eyes. It had been in his bedroom, many years ago.

He’d woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of raised voices. Instantly alert, and afraid, he’d lain there in bed for a few minutes trying to catch the words his parents were hurling at each other with such anger. When he couldn’t, he slipped out of bed, heart pounding in his chest, and crept out into the hallway.

With each step he took towards the closed door of his parents’ bedroom, more words crystallised from amongst the shouting.

“How many times…”

“…he’s just a child…”

“…something’s wrong with him…”

“…he’s our son…”

“…he’s dangerous!”

Adam had turned and fled back to his room then. It was the first time he’d had his fears confirmed. They were fighting about him.

Before he’d reached his bedroom, the cracks had appeared. He jammed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the cracks - and the tears - diving into his bed and burying himself in the blankets. But the shouting didn’t end, and the cracks didn’t either. He could still see them even with his eyes shut tight.

A deep sadness gripped him, and he’d never felt more alone. A large shadow began to form in the widest crack. He’d just wanted to end the terrible loneliness, but mingled with that desire was a cocktail of shame, self-loathing, and a sickening anxiety that his parents would leave him.

A furry, claw-filled paw reached out of the crack. Adam didn’t scream. It had been a while since the things in the cracks had made him scream. But he huddled tighter into his blankets as the monster emerged.

Its fur was a reddy-brown, and its giant round eyes a brilliant green. It stood on two short legs, but looked like it could drop to all fours and move around like a dog if it wanted. In fact, there was some resemblance to a dog - Adam’s imaginary best friend, Banter - only this monster looked like it was part human too. A deformity. A freak. Just another monster from the cracks that Adam was sure did not really exist. Just his sick imagination. Just his broken mind.

The monster looked like it wanted to hide under the blankets too, and Adam was sure that if it got into bed with him, he would be forced to scream, but then its eyes widened even further with obvious terror and it fled from the room, making only the faintest of sounds on its padded paws.

Adam had never seen the monster again. Until now.

Those bright green eyes stared into his own, and Adam found himself shuffling forward, approaching the monster - no, the creature - his poor creation - with a tender hand outstretched

“You’ve been hiding down here a long time,” said Adam, and those green eyes gave him a long, slow blink. “You didn’t want to leave me.” Another blink. Adam was close enough now to rest his hand on the soft fur of its shoulder. He felt it give a shudder, then relax to the touch. “You were just afraid…” The creature gave a deep whimpering sound, both terribly sad and utterly relieved, as if this moment had been all it ever wanted, and thought it could never have.

The sound cascaded around the pillars beneath the house.

As if a signal had been lit, declaring Adam safe to approach, the darkness around them began to shift and take form. Dozens of eyes, of all different colours and sizes pierced through the dark. Within a few heartbeats, they were surrounded by every creature that had ever made it through the cracks, each one a living memory of the darkest moments in Adam’s life.

Gen made a squealing noise halfway between alarm and awe. “You made all of these? You’re like… some sort of monster making machine.”

Adam turned from one set of frightened eyes to the next, all of them different, and yet all of them carrying the same part of himself. The part that caused him the most pain. The fear that drove him away from his parents when he should’ve been holding them close. The fear that kept him alone at school year after year rather than trying to make new friends. He hadn’t given these creatures any life of their own. He’d only cursed them with the worst parts of his.

“I’m the monster,” whispered Adam.

“You’re a Wildfire,” said Gen, as if this both confirmed and denied what he’d said.

Adam reached out with both hands, drawing his creations in closer, feeling furs and feathers and scales, all shuddering as any living thing would, after being left alone in the dark for so long.

“I’m so sorry,” Adam told them, his voice on the edge of breaking.

He couldn’t bear it any longer. He held his poor creations, wishing he could take every moment of their pain away. Wishing he could bear it for them instead. He imagined taking it all back, and it felt like he would drown under the weight of it, the sudden influx of so much fear. But he would never give it back to them. It was his to endure. He watched as his creations returned to where they came from in a shower of sparkling white light.

Then there was only darkness under the house once more.

Adam felt warm tears on his face, and swallowed a mournful sob.

“Adam?” Gen asked, more delicately than he’d ever heard her speak before. He turned to her, ready to give her a reassuring smile and let her know that everything was going to be okay.

Then the sound of Ridley screaming ruptured the silence. Screaming like he was being engulfed in flames. Screaming for his life.

Adam snapped his attention back towards the pool of light leading up into the house.

He had been relieved to find out he hadn’t been making monsters all these years. But that didn’t mean he’d never made a monster.

Adam began crawling towards the light, as fast as he could.